


better off

by tsunderestorm



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: “Ever wonder if the world would be better off without you?”
Relationships: Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia
Kudos: 7





	better off

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt game on [tumblr](chanceoftsunderestorms.tumblr.com) and originally posted [here](https://chanceoftsunderestorms.tumblr.com/post/92870998800/suzalulu-ever-wonder-if-the-world-would-be-better).

“Hey, Lelouch?” Suzaku asked, idly fingering the gold stitching on the Ashford uniform’s collar, rubbing his thumb over the insignia like a worry stone. He could look out across the courtyard from the balcony they were sitting on, over Ashford’s high fence and across the street to the university where the Lancelot and his duties waited, where his only hope for redemption called out to him. “Ever wonder if the world would be better off without you?”

Lelouch imagined a world without him, a world without Zero, the Black Knights – a world full of suffering, a world unfit for Nunnally, and with all the hubris of the well-intentioned, he answered “Yes, I do. And what a world that would be, not much better at all!” 

Lelouch had found it to be a strange question at the time, a seemingly random instance of an existential crisis. That was before Mao's Geass power laid Suzaku's mind bare before them, stripped the cheerful smiles from his face and the chivalry from his heart, revealing his death wish in stark clarity. It left a taste of the copper tang of blood in Lelouch’s mouth – he’d never imagined wanting to die so badly that you plan your own death; that you dive in front of sprays of bullets and jump into the flaming wreckage of explosions.

(Later, he learns that feeling well, learns how it feels to crave the cold embrace of death, a punishment justly deserved. Some might say he’s playing God when he orchestrates his own death, but he knows better. Pride goeth before a fall, and he’s hand enough of pride – the world does not deserve his tainted presence.)

"You once asked me a question." Lelouch said as he watched Suzaku turn the Zero helmet this way and that, watched the blue-black glass catch the low light in the room and reflecting Suzaku’s face like a carnival mirror. It was a distortion, like a ripple in time and reality; there is only the two of them and this room, this plan. "Do you remember? ‘Ever wonder if the world would be better off without you’, you asked."

"You'd mock me about that, even now?"

"Hardly," Lelouch said somberly, gesturing to the sword in the corner. It's been an unmistakable presence since he'd first clasped Suzaku’s hand and whispered the words __Zero Requiem__. The gilded grip is beautiful, and he knows it will fit well in Suzaku’s hand (he’d picked it out of a room in the palace specifically for the occasion) and he’ll wield it well, hold it steady and true even as the jewels on the guard stare out at him like accusatory red eyes. "I can answer your question differently now."

Suzaku looked at him with narrowed eyes, gloved fingers squeezing tight around the mask, the heat of his fingertips fogging the gleaming glass. Suzaku grits his teeth. "And?"

"I don't wonder," Lelouch confessed. It is not the commanding tone of an emperor, or the plaintive whisper of a desperate man, and that sense of surety is something Suzaku knows well. "I know it would be."


End file.
